The Guide Crashes when open file

[Hugo Pereira]

Hello everyone,

I have a very important .gde file with 700mb that suddenly started to crash the guide software when i try to open it! Does anyone know how to solve this situation? Or if there is any way that i can recover the information in this file?

Thank you hope someone can help me with this.

[Jim Knecht]

Hello, It's been awhile since I used the guide but here are three suggestions:

1) There is another exe file (gdeutil.exe) somewhere in the folder where the guide is installed that allows export to other formats. That might be able to load the gde file and export to another format since it is separate of the main guide.exe.  The util is command line only though so you will need to use it from the CMD prompt ([windows key+r] then type cmd)

so you would need to do something like:

gdeutil -a=export -f=xml filename.gde 

gdeutil --help

Usage: gdeutil [-v] [-a <action>] [-f <format>] [--omit-text] [--help] [--version] <file> [<file>]...

 

Performs the specified ACTION on the given Guide (.gde) files.

As of now, only action=export with format=xml are implemented.

Exported XML files are created in the same directory as the .gde file.

Options:

  -a, --action=<action>     action (must be "export")

  -f, --format=<format>     output format for export (must be "xml")

  --omit-text               omit <text> tags when exporting to XML

  -v, --verbose             verbose messages

  --help                    print this help and exit

  --version                 print version information and exit

  <file>                    input file(s)

2) I have had success renaming gde files to txt and viewing them (make and work on a copy of the gde file to be safe).  You will see all the RTF formatting markup, but if it's important data you may just have to take the time to grab all the text.  Also doing it this way you won't be able to recover any images since they are encoded in an rtf number format.

2a) I have had very limited success in renaming to txt, opening the text file and then deleting the beginning few characters up to the first { and then renaming to rtf and loading it with MS word which sees it as an RTF format file. I am using the Mac version of MS Word so your mileage may vary.

3) This suggestion assumes there is something on your computer or in your user profile that is causing the guide to fail.

3a) Try using windows safe made, I am not sure if the Guide will work in safe mode but its worth a shot.  

3b) Also trying it on a different computer

3c) You could create another user profile in windows and load only the guide software and that gde, this would work if something were messed up in your main user profile.

[San]

Dear Jim Knecht,

Thank you so much for your hint #2)

"2a) I have had very limited success in renaming to txt, opening the text file and then deleting the beginning few characters up to the first { and then renaming to rtf and loading it with MS word which sees it as an RTF format file. I am using the Mac version of MS Word so your mileage may vary."

You can even get access and open more text of the crashed Guide file, if you do it like this:

1. Open your crashed Guide file with notepad or editor. (Or with any texteditor, that deals the text file as an .txt file)  
2. There, look for the next   {\rtf1\ ...   to shows up. (Fastest way to do this is to use the search function, Strg+F and search for rtf1 ) 
3. Delete every text before  {\rtf1\ ... .     Do not delete  {\rtf1\ ...  and any text that comes after it.
4. Then just save the file.  (Fastest way is with Strg+S )
5. Now open the file with Wordpad or Word  (or any other Program that deals the file as .rtf now)  -  and you will see the next node or page of your former guide file. - And it still has its original rtf-format! 

6. Repeat the steps 1-5 as often as wished and possible.

Hope this helps!


ps: 0. Maybe for Mac: If you need to, you can check show file name extensions and rename your crashed .gde file to .txt     Or rename it to .rtf    ( In Windows you don't need to rename the .gde file at all,  and the steps worked anyway. )

Just another hint for your other earlier suggestion #1)  No need for cmd at all: Just drag and drop your .gde file onto gdeutil.exe and it will open and the .xml file will be created. (This will probably only work if the .gde file is not corrupt ! )